Monkey and the Engineer (Live at Radio City Music Hall, New York City, October 27, 1980) The Grateful Dead

[Intro]
From the song about tragedy impending, uh, we're gonna move swiftly to a song about tragedy narrowly averted. It's another in our long list of tragedy songs, but this one is a tragedy narrowly averted. It goes like this: one, two, three, four

[Verse 1]
Once upon a time there was an engineer
Drove a locomotive both far and near
Accompanied by a monkey who would sit on a stool
Watching everything the engineer would move
One day the engineer wanted a bite to eat
He left the monkey sitting on the driver's seat
The monkey pulled the throttle, locomotive jumped the gun
Doing ninety miles an hour down the mainline run

[Chorus]
Big locomotive right on time
Big locomotive coming down the line
Big locomotive number 99
Left the engineer with a worried mind

[Verse 2]
The engineer called up the dispatcher on the phone
Tell him all about his locomotive was gone
Get on the wire, switch operator to right
'Cause the monkey's got the mainline sewed up tight
Switch operator got the message in time
Said there's a northbound limit on the same mainline
Open up the switch, I'm gonna let it through the hole
'Cause the monkey's got the locomotive under control